It's January 1st. The year is new, my coffee is hot, and my expectations are subterranean.

My Manifesto for 2026 (The Year That’s On Thin Ice Already)

It's January 1st. The year is new, my coffee is hot, and my expectations are subterranean. Let's talk about what I'm naively, snarkily, stupidly hoping for.

This Morning

It's January 1st, 2026.

I woke up. The sky outside my window is the same shade of winter grey it was yesterday. The same vague sense of low-grade dread about the news cycle is humming in the back of my brain. My back still clicks in that weird way when I stand up.

The magic reset button, it turns out, is a lie we tell ourselves because we like the sound of a countdown. The calendar flipped, but the world didn't. It just got a new version number: World_OS_2026.exe (Bugs May Persist).

But.

The coffee in my mug is fresh and stupidly good. This website is still here. And for some reason, you're still reading. That has to count for something. So, while the delusion of a fresh start is still chemically viable (thanks, caffeine), let's do this. Let's talk about my 2026.

These aren't resolutions. Resolutions are for people who believe in willpower and have closets organized by color. These are declarations of intent, whispered into the void with a smirk, a shrug, and a backup plan that involves more swearing.

Part I: The FriedReads Expansion Pack (Or, How I Plan to Avoid Real Work)

First, the stuff I might actually control. The personal corner of this strange year.

1. More Words. Preferably Funny Ones. The core mission remains: more articles. More deep dives into the glorious, stupid underbelly of everything. I'm not chasing a posting schedule; I'm chasing a vibe. The goal is to write something that makes a reader—maybe you—snort-laugh so unexpectedly they have to explain themself to an empty room. Once a month, minimum. Let's weaponize humor. It's cheaper than therapy.

2. The Novels Will… Novel. Creatures Among Us isn't done with me. There are more chapters lurking in the drafts, more plot to unravel over on ScribbleHub and RoyalRoad. That story is my slow-burn side project, the thing I work on when the snark well runs dry. In 2026, I'd like to give it a little more daylight. No grand promises, just the intent to feed the other beast.

3. The Graphic Novel "Investigation" (The "No, Seriously, Don't Hold Your Breath" Clause) Okay, here's a new one. I've had this stupid, vivid idea for a graphic novel kicking around. So my 2026 "goal" is to look into it. This does not mean I will draw it. I can barely draw a convincing stick figure with existential dread. It means I will spend approximately 48 hours falling down a rabbit hole of software tutorials, artist pricing sheets, and comic script formatting, get utterly overwhelmed by the scale of it, and then write a 3,000-word FriedReads article about the process of being overwhelmed. That's the output. Consider this your early warning. Progress!

Part II: My Ideal 2026 (A Global Snark-Fest, As Directed By Me)

Now, let's talk about the world. The big, messy, frustrating stage where we're all just background actors.

Since I'm the one with the keyboard today, I get to describe my ideal version. The 2026 we won't get, but the one I'm going to speak into existence with the sheer force of my sarcasm. Buckle up.

Hope #1: The Grand Finale of Exhausting Debates. In my 2026, we collectively develop an allergy to nonsense. We agree, as a species, to retire the five most tired, brain-melting internet arguments. We stop saying "cancel culture" and just call it "the free market of ideas finally noticing your product sucks." We acknowledge that some "classic" literature is just well-preserved trash, and that's fine. We move on. The collective psychic energy saved could power a small nation, or at least make Twitter marginally less of a hellscape. I will aid this by writing the definitive, unnecessarily detailed obituary for at least one sacred cow. My hope is that we all get bored of yelling at each other and start laughing at the same stupid things again.

Hope #2: A Viral Trend That Doesn't Make Me Lose Faith in Humanity. Forget dance challenges orchestrated by big brands. In my 2026, the thing that breaks the internet is #AnachronisticRoastDay. Imagine it: everyone, using historical facts, writes the most savage, modern-day-style takedown of a figure from history. A medieval peasant drags a king's military strategy via Twitter thread. Cleopatra reviews Roman politics as a YouTube video essay. Ben Franklin claps back at a hater with a perfectly formatted Substack post. It's creative, it requires a tiny bit of reading, and it's fueled by pure, anachronistic spite. It would be beautiful, chaotic, and educational. My hope is for a trend that rewards wit over vanity, just once.

Hope #3: A Billionaire’s Bizarre, Unambiguous Act of Good. No more rockets to nowhere. No more meta-verses that look like a depressing corporate lobby. In my 2026, one bored trillionaire wakes up and does something logistically simple and undeniably good, just for the plot twist. They anonymously pay off the student lunch debt for an entire state. They fund the repair of every single public playground in a major city. They buy a struggling local newspaper and just… let the journalists do their jobs. No branding. No documentary. Just a solved problem with a mysterious footnote. The ensuing conspiracy theories would be the most wholesome thing on the internet. My hope is to witness a act of power so purely helpful it short-circuits the cynicism of an entire generation.

Hope #4: The Cosmic Comeuppance Engine Keeps Rolling. 2025 gave us the glorious music of Jake Paul's jaw realigning. My ideal 2026 sees the universe's karma department get creative with its deliveries. I want to see a corrupt oligarch humiliated not in court, but by his own pampered show dog winning "Best in Show" under a rival's name. I want to see a bloviating hate-monger get fact-checked into oblivion by the official Twitter account of the Teletubbies. I want justice to be not only served, but plated with a side of exquisite, hilarious irony. My hope is for the universe to keep its sense of humor, and for me to have a front-row seat with a publishing platform.

Part III: The Ground-Level Reality (Where We Actually Live)

Here's the truth: almost none of this will happen.

The potholes on my street will likely remain. The internet will find new, dumber things to fight about. The news will deliver fresh horrors on schedule.

The real, achievable hope for 2026—for me, and maybe for you—isn't for the world to fix itself. It's to get better at building and tending our own corners of it.

For me, that corner is this website. It's the snark, the stories, the shared laugh at the absurdity of it all. It's my small, stubbornly lit campfire in a pretty dark woods. My goal is to keep it burning, and maybe stack a little more wood this year.

So here's to 2026. May it be less actively terrible than the last. May we find our sparks—our writing, our art, our projects, our people—and may we be brave enough to protect them, grow them, and share them.

The world might not get better. But we can get better at building our weird, wonderful corners of it.

Let's go build.

Fueling the campfire for another year,
Allen
FriedReads.com | @Allen_Fried